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This happens. People grow at different rates. They change. But even if you feel this way about the person whose party this is, I would still carefully consider attending anyway. It's not at all uncommon for friendships between single people and married people to fall by the wayside, because their lives and their priorities become too different. But if you start cutting yourself off now, it's less an issue of growing apart, and more an issue of you actively cutting things off.
In other words, the door between you may well close on its own, in the passage of time and in the changes of life; but if you value your friendship at all, try not to be the one to purposely close it.
You can just look at it as a "night out." Some of the couples may even envy your "single status," I wouldn't be surprised.
I remember receiving a wedding invitation from a dear friend from high school. I wasn't attached and worried about
feeling awkward. It was all in vain. I think there was only one couple at our table! Two other friends from h.s.
came solo (one was even married) and there were two other married female guests sitting with us who didn't bring their husbands!!
Not sure if this is a new thing for wedding guests - the husbands tell their wives - go without me!
*My brother's landlords are a married couple. The wife got an invite to a co-worker's wedding. Her husband
did NOT want to go -so she brought their teenage daughter as her guest.
It always is hard if you are the single person. Either A, they want to hook you up with someone who isn't your ideal mate but they think you are and it becomes awkward or B you are the fifth wheel and it is awkward to be the lone person at a drive-in not making out with your date... Either way, it gets awkward real fast.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amkxoxo
I'm 29. All my friends are married or engaged. A close friend just reached out inviting me to an engagement party for her in a month and a half. Very small, like 25 people going. The issue is the guests are all couples. Everyone going is coupled up.
I'm dreading going to this party. I love, support, and am happy for my friend. But going alone, around all couples, celebrating a couple seems miserable for me. I'll be the only solo one. I don't want to sit alone, watching others cuddle up around a fire pit. I don't want to miss it, but I also already feel it making me depressed. I've had past relationships that didn't work out. And I'm not trying or in a rush to find a new relationship currently.
In the past, when my friend invites me to things with all couples, I've tried to tell her these feelings I have and explain to her how it is being single, but she simply says "well find someone to bring " they act like its easy, because they've never had a hard time with dating. But I just haven't met the right one for me and have had it harder.
If I could find someone, I wouldn't be single. My friends, and this friend in particular doesn't get it. She's never been single for more than a month.
I don't know what to do.
Im going to be the dissenting opinion here (surprise, right?). Personally, I’d pass. Doesn’t sound like you like them much anyway now. One thing to bear a party for family. But for people you don’t really like anyway, why put yourself through that?
I'm 29. All my friends are married or engaged. A close friend just reached out inviting me to an engagement party for her in a month and a half. Very small, like 25 people going. The issue is the guests are all couples. Everyone going is coupled up.
I'm dreading going to this party. I love, support, and am happy for my friend. But going alone, around all couples, celebrating a couple seems miserable for me. I'll be the only solo one. I don't want to sit alone, watching others cuddle up around a fire pit. I don't want to miss it, but I also already feel it making me depressed. I've had past relationships that didn't work out. And I'm not trying or in a rush to find a new relationship currently.
In the past, when my friend invites me to things with all couples, I've tried to tell her these feelings I have and explain to her how it is being single, but she simply says "well find someone to bring " they act like its easy, because they've never had a hard time with dating. But I just haven't met the right one for me and have had it harder.
If I could find someone, I wouldn't be single. My friends, and this friend in particular doesn't get it. She's never been single for more than a month.
I don't know what to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2 Scoops
You can just look at it as a "night out." Some of the couples may even envy your "single status," I wouldn't be surprised.
I remember receiving a wedding invitation from a dear friend from high school. I wasn't attached and worried about
feeling awkward. It was all in vain. I think there was only one couple at our table! Two other friends from h.s.
came solo (one was even married) and there were two other married female guests sitting with us who didn't bring their husbands!!
Not sure if this is a new thing for wedding guests - the husbands tell their wives - go without me!
*My brother's landlords are a married couple. The wife got an invite to a co-worker's wedding. Her husband
did NOT want to go -so she brought their teenage daughter as her guest.
Haha, my daughter asked me to be her date at a friend's wedding in July. Her bf is a chef at an upscale waterfront restaurant, and it would not be easy for him to take off on a Saturday night in summer. I have known the bride since she moved to our town when the girls were in 8th grade and became friends.
(Of course, NOW it remains to be seen whether the wedding can be held anyway. Or if the bf's restaurant will reopen.)
I was also the single person in a sea of couples. Many times I would attend functions by myself, but other times I would bring my best friend. She was married but her husband wasn't very sociable so I was often her "date" as well.
I agree sometimes it can be uncomfortable, but there are many times I went by myself and had a wonderful time. If I hadn't gone just because I was on my own, I would have missed out on some of the best times of my life.
I was also the single person in a sea of couples. Many times I would attend functions by myself, but other times I would bring my best friend. She was married but her husband wasn't very sociable so I was often her "date" as well.
I agree sometimes it can be uncomfortable, but there are many times I went by myself and had a wonderful time. If I hadn't gone just because I was on my own, I would have missed out on some of the best times of my life.
This! Maybe because my friends know I am asexual and many of my full-time co-workers think I must be a lesbian or something, no one has ever tried to fix me up with someone else. I just went and had a good time.
Tell your friend that you do not find it so easy to arrange a date. Tell her that you would love to attend her party, and ask her to set up a date for you.
Sadly, I think a big part of this that stems deep in me is that I don't really like my friends. We met in college years ago and we had so many similar intetests and lifestyles then. We got very close for years. But the last three years or so we barely have anything in common anymore. We have different interests, values, and lifestyles. I find myself more mature, intelligent, and an old soul. They are a bit immature. I love them for the friendship we forged all those years ago. But if I met them now as new acquaintances, I don't think I'd be their friends. I hate saying this because I do care for them. I just wish I could meet people more like me.
First when we are depressed we sometimes withdraw from social events. I know I have mentioned the depression idea to you in another thread, but be open to the idea that your current lack of interest in maintaining these friendship is caused by the depression. If it were me I would check back on whether I want these people in my lives after I have been exercising regularly or got some treatment for depression.
Second you also mentioned that you gave up on online dating. But it seems like one of the things that is driving this depression is some recent difficulties with dating. In the era before online dating, how people found someone to date was by being introduced to some one in their social circle. The larger your social circle, the better this works because you have a lot of people who know you and like you and that draws a larger net of people for them to introduce to you. These women who are married and engaged, well the guys in these women's lives have guy friends, brothers and coworkers, some of whom are single that they likely can introduce you to. If you think about how frats and sororities work in college, well this is how they work they formalized the process for trying to build out a social circle. Sales people do the same thing when they go to sales networking events. So I would be too quick to prune this social circle. It takes a lot of effort to build new friends it doesn't take that much effort to keep old ones.
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